for the piano: Schubert vs. Mozart vs. Chopin

deeply, deeply relevant

rain gathering in the sky, listening to Sonata No. 2 (Olga Kern, Harmonia Mundi, terrific) - Chopin wins this poll for sure

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 6 March 2011 00:28 (25 minutes ago)

the german gods sent the rain cuz they knew u were going to decide a damn franco-slav could do sturm und drang better than them

it's not the sturm und drang it's the finer feelings that Chopin excels in!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hk2dup6KMsI/TSTllKjZ6iI/AAAAAAAAAWI/AIno1vO3Dsg/s1600/bismarck.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Chopin
Because Schubert and Mozart wrote other things besides piano music

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

dang

polonaise in Ab major op 53 olga kern

whole life lived in 6:49

paul badura-skoda

everybody remotely interested in this thread get him doing mozart at the very least

Thanks. I've been wanting to get into the Mozart sonatas but wasn't sure who to go with. Don't want to hear it overly romanticized.

^ u need the Ivan Moravec Plays Mozart disc on Supraphon IMO.

Also I believe Aero has repped strong for the period-piano Mozart recordings of Kristian Bezuidenhout before, I really want to check out one of those. I think there are now two volumes on Harmonia Mundi and an earlier one on a smaller label...

uchida tbrr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ79dUvhrXs

low placement of schubert incomprehensible to me

is he on spotify? could use a good sunday morning mozart sesh

uchida tbrr

she is truly one of the greatest pianists of all time imo

but badura-skoda on mozart is something that everybody who loves mozart should really hear because he really seems bent on making the voice of the composer audible. just so crisp

i love the uchida schubert box

Schubert, and only Schubert, on R3 for the next few days...

On the classical thread I was going bonkers recently over Andsnes' recording of the Sonata D958.

do you rate andsnes w/ liszt?

Trying to play this now and realizing I never will get it even remotely close to performance tempo. It's depressing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t1eE8sZKIo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsoUIBcl7iw imo

Why come piano gotta be so hard!

do you rate andsnes w/ liszt?

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan)

I like his Liszt recital disc pretty well, and his Grieg, but his Schubert's on another level entirely (at least D958 and D959 which are the ones I have).

good recording of Schubert's impromptus?

I've tried about 12 different cycles and I just keep coming back to Brendel (his analog one from the 70s, available in a 2fer with the Moments Musicaux etc, not his digital one). It has the most subtly hypnotic effect. I don't like for the performer to do too much to these pieces. They should just 'come down from the sky and stand there'.

oh sweet thanks. I listened to some of Krystian Zimerman play on youtube, but I don't know Schubert from Flaubert

Zimerman is ok but not great (I do love him in Liszt and Debussy). an easily available alt choice imo would be Radu Lupu.

I stan for Lupu that dude is great plus it's fun to say his name

It really is!!!

I've sung it before to myself as well: ra-DOOO, Lu-POOO, ra-DOO lu-POO ra-DOO...

this Chopin fellow was quite good at his job I daresay

http://navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6123/

chopin barcarolle is my favorite solo piano piece these days. wish I could play it..

Neither Mozart nor Chopin ever wrote anything as transcendent as Schubert's last three piano sonatas.

makes a killer dip too

That's quite a statement. What do they transcend?

To begin with, the piano sonata as a classical genre unto itself. In terms of length, breadth and sheer expressivity. Krystian Zimerman's recent recordings of the final two (D 959 & D 960) showcase this quite well.

Sviatoslav Richter's readings of the D 960 are outliers, but I couldn't do without them. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lncNcNtGkJY

So, is structure the primary way you are arguing that they are transcendent?

The melodic/harmonic material as well, especially in the D 960, though you could argue that it also falls under the umbrella of 'structure'.

I just wonder if melodic/harmonic means we are talking about Schubert's musicality (as being transcendent) or if we are again talking about formal matters.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction between form and musicality in music.

I.e. it's all form to me.

"Musicality" for me would be the distinction between something that manages some kind of expressive accomplishment in its use of form rather than merely managing something that is of interest for its formal aspects.

I get what you're saying. For me, a form is 'musical' (in the meliorative sense) if it is formally interesting, which always implies expressivity, including when the stated goal is inexpressivity. Said form can be simple or complex, and I don't think of it as being reducible to 'dead notes on a page'. Rather, the interaction between score and performance (in most classical music anyway) brings about a specific form that is the music itself, which can then be broken down into subcategories (treatment of melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.), so I suppose that's a broader understanding of what we usually mean when we say 'form' or 'structure'. But I'm not a musician so my conception of these things is no doubt rather idiosyncratic.

It seems to me that the view of music you are describing would lead one to think that a Mozart opera overture is only as interesting as one of a lesser composer as long as there are the same number of things that are of formal interest in the latter, i.e., that there is no consideration of the magic in music that, yes, works within a formal design but cannot be reduced to it.

Then you misunderstand my point, which is precisely that form is not a mere architectural plan. It is alive, and it is unpredictable, and it is context-dependent. I get the sense that we agree but are approaching the concept of form from two divergent angles.

If it's context-dependent, then I'm curious what those contexts are that make these sonatas transcendent in ways that Mozart and Chopin are not.